Chapter Text
When Jo Euishin blinks, he finds himself standing among many people.
First years, a peripheral part of his mind says. Another part of his mind also questions it.
Jo Euishin looks around absently, as if he is in an entirely unfamiliar place though it shouldn't be. Not to him. He had clearly walked into this large auditorium with the other kids. He was clearly wearing the same uniform, around the same age. He knows that it's his new school. Or is it?
Jo Euishin can't stop himself from looking and looking and looking, feeling some kind of incongruity. Like he should be finding something off. His senses feel like they are going on and off, like a light switch turning on the lights and then just as quickly - in a flash - turning the whole room back into confused darkness.
It's Eungwang High School, Korea's most prestigious player exclusive high school.
He is a first year who is attending the school now.
He is in the auditorium for the entrance ceremony, waiting for the first year representative to say the freshman oath on all of their behalf.
He didn't remember taking the entrance exam. He didn't remember applying. For some reason, he's not even certain if he had studied or trained diligently enough to pass...
But then again, Jo Euishin thinks.
That's probably normal too.
His family had died not too long ago.
After that, Jo Euishin didn't really remember much of anything.
Perhaps, he had prepared and taken the entrance exam while taking care of the other matters - the funeral affairs, settling the inheritance, moving out into a place where he can be alone - that he didn't remember.
Jo Euishin feels like most of his recent memories were black spots, large void-like gaps in his mind. His past feels like that too – like all his memories of living in this world was covered in a dark ambiently buzzing haze. Did he remember what he did with his family before they-?
Normally, his memory is a lot better than that. But now as everyone was chatting excitedly and saying that this year's first years were crazy with people like a Dragon tribe's descendant and Neuru's son and other people like that, Jo Euishin wasn't anywhere near a fraction as excited as them.
He felt as dead as his...
A person with a frosty expression slowly walks into view towards the podium.
Without meaning to, Jo Euishin finds himself lifting his dead gaze off the ground.
Light gleams radiantly off those half-rimmed glasses.
Although the first year representative, Cheon Dongha, has a voice as cold as his expression, Jo Euishin somehow finds his heart being a little warmed at the sight. His spirits lift a little with the representative's voice. His stiff hands slowly clench, feeling a little firm with the conviction of that simple oath, perfectly recited without fluctuations.
“Oath. We, the freshmen, who were approved to enter the Eungwang Player Meister High School, solemnly swear to work hard to study and grow our capabilities, and to respect the school’s spirit and rules while enrolled.”
As expected of his...
Jo Euishin looks up at Cheon Dongha who finishes the first year oath.
Although his mind still feels a little hazy, dark, and dim, and it still feels like winter instead of the spring that it is, Jo Euishin thinks that he can try.
He's not sure how he had gotten into the Korean Republic's most prestigious player high school in the state that he was in, but he thinks that he can try to do his best at school now that he is already here.
It's still cold. It's still hard to live. It's still hard to breathe. He feels like he is coughing the last dredges of his life, strangled, and blood is on his hand, everywhere, on the walls, and he's welcoming the darkness that was going to finally take him in- but something is stopping him, so many things that are mixed into one thing, making it impossible to describe...
But Jo Euishin will try.
Like he always had.
It's his first time seeing the first year representative, but he thinks that as long as he is still alive, he cannot give up yet.