Green Eyed

The sky in this sunless world was always the exact same color. A deep, heavy indigo.

As if light had been denied from the very beginning, the vast sky pressed down heavily upon everything below.

Judith stood on the cracked asphalt. Gray weeds grew wildly through the fissures.

The way living things grew in this world was somehow fundamentally wrong.

She gripped the pencil case at her waist. The heavy texture of the fabric.

The faint sound of pens clinking against each other inside.

This pencil case was no mere school supply. It was the sole weapon she wielded with her life on the line.

And the reward for surviving with this weapon was sweet.

92 points. The math score from the academy's regular mock exam, graded with a red colored pencil.

It was an unfamiliar yet brilliant score she had never reached since entering high school.

A red number stamped like a miracle on the life of Hyeon-ju, who had always hovered around the upper-middle ranks.

The more she squeezed out her mana to survive in The Witch World, the more terrifyingly brilliant her brain in reality became.

Judith stepped into the alley, trampling the gray weeds.

The buildings were stripped to their bones, their outer walls crumbled. Black holes gaped where windows should have been.

Through those hollow spaces, the night wind howled low.

The air touching her nose was cold and damp. Judith took a breath.

The chill rushing into her lungs pierced sharply into her ribs. It was a recurring sensation every time she set foot in The Reverse World.

A ruin that flawlessly copied the topography of reality. Where an apartment complex should have been, only gray debris remained.

Where a shopping mall should have stood, the scorched shell of a building loomed.

Tonight, just make it safely to the alliance's new base. Judith crossed the alley and moved forward.

Three days ago, Ruin attacked the alliance base. Two members of the alliance lost their mana.

And their memories vanished with it. They no longer knew of the existence of The Reverse World.

As if they were people who never knew this world from the start, they would have returned to being ordinary dropouts.

Judith remembered the terrified faces of the alliance members. And the suffocating silence left in the place where Ruin had disappeared.

Judith stopped in her tracks. The air had changed.

The temperature hadn't dropped, yet something unseen began to crush the entire air of this alley.

Her heart sent out a warning. At the end of the alley, where the darkness pooled the thickest, a presence could be felt.

It did not move. It did not hold its breath. It stood there as if it had been a part of the darkness from the very beginning.

Judith pulled a single ballpoint pen from the pencil case. White mana flickered at her fingertips.

Thin and quiet, precise enough not to be detected. Do not move. Not yet.

The presence lifted its head. The face was invisible. The darkness was too dense.

But the eyes were different. Two green flames shining vividly beneath the dark sky.

Judith's mana froze at her fingertips. Green. Eyes of the exact same color as her own were looking down at her from the darkness.

It moved. Slow and overwhelming. One step, two steps. There was no sound.

Walking over the ruins of this world, not a single footstep could be heard.

A cold chill ran down Judith's spine. It happened in the next moment.

A black string bookmark flew from the darkness. Judith twisted her body. A cold wind brushed past her ear. It missed.

But a second one came. A third one, too.

Her evasion could not match the speed of the incoming attacks. One string grazed Judith's ankle. That was enough.

Mana surged backwards. From her ankle to her waist, from her waist to her ribs.

Cold, unfamiliar mana shot up backward through her blood vessels. Judith gritted her teeth.

She could not collapse. She could not let the 92 points be taken away.

Return. Right now. She struck the Mana Core in her heart. Once. Twice.

The sensation of space twisting arrived. The darkness before her eyes shattered into pieces. Three times.

The green eyes grew distant. The figure reached out its hand, but Judith's body was already escaping the air of The Reverse World.

The last thing she heard was not a voice. It was a low, quiet sound of breathing.

A breath that sounded as if it had known her from long ago.

She was on the bed. Hyeon-ju opened her eyes. Her heart pounded in her ears.

A ballpoint pen was clutched in her hand because she had fallen asleep holding it just before crossing into The Reverse World.

The pen had left a deep red indentation in her palm.

Outside the window, it was dawn. The time when even the birds had not yet begun to cry.

Only the light from the streetlamp leaked thinly through the gap in the curtains.

Hyeon-ju exhaled evenly, staring at the ceiling. Her body was heavy.

While in The Reverse World, her physical body in reality was asleep, but every time she used mana, a terrible fatigue accumulated in her flesh.

It was an ambiguous sensation of neither sleeping nor being awake.

Her ankle throbbed. Hyeon-ju kicked off the blanket and checked her ankle. There were no marks. However, the bone-chilling pain was vivid.

Those eyes. Green. Hyeon-ju covered her eyes with her hand.

The light still flickered on the inside of her eyelids. She did not see the face. She did not know the name either.

Only the pressure radiating from that presence was clear. That presence already knew her. The breathing she heard at the end proved it.

She picked up the phone by her pillow. The screen displayed 2 AM.

The perceived time in The Reverse World was twenty minutes, but only ten minutes had passed in reality.

Time flowed differently in the two worlds. Hyeon-ju sat up before the alarm rang. She wanted to study.

Later that afternoon, the silence of the academy's study room was broken only by the scratching of a single ballpoint pen.

Hyeon-ju, who finished her self-study early because she had almost no incorrect answers, packed her bag and stepped outside.

Students were gathered in front of the academy bulletin board. The results of the regular internal mock exam were out.

The fierce competition results of hundreds of students were posted on the board. Hyeon-ju was extremely satisfied with her rank.

A secret smile spread across her lips.

Strangely, the more she risked her life in The Reverse World, the more radiant Hyeon-ju in reality began to shine.

Tangled math formulas sorted themselves out like unraveled yarn, and inspiration poured in.

Hyeon-ju stood in front of the bulletin board for a long time before slipping out of the crowd. Not a bad price to pay for having a secret.

It was the moment she stepped into the hallway.

"Hyeon-ju, your complexion looks good today. Did something good happen?"

It was Lee Hyeon-jin. The flawless honor student who never lost his top rank in the school. And Hyeon-ju's best friend.

First place in the internal mock exam naturally belonged to him as well.

"Huh? No, just... my mock exam score came out better than I thought."

Hyeon-ju mumbled her answer and turned her gaze out the window.

It was a sky where darkness was beginning to settle thickly. It seemed like a prelude that the time to head to that world was not far off.

"You really have good momentum these days. I should stay on my toes and try harder too."

It was a sincere compliment. But Hyeon-ju's thoughts were already heading elsewhere.

In her mind, the memory of dawn remained like an afterimage. Two green eyes glowing in the darkness at the end of the alley.

"Hyeon-ju? Are you listening to me?"

Hyeon-jin's voice struck her ear. Hyeon-ju suddenly snapped back to her senses.

Hyeon-jin had stopped and was staring intently at her with a worried look.

"Oh, sorry. I was thinking about something else."

"What are you thinking so much about? If you have a worry, tell me."

Hyeon-ju offered a faint smile and looked away. Hyeon-jin accepted that smile as just a smile.

A brief silence flowed. Hyeon-ju's gaze suddenly landed on his face. The clunky black horn-rimmed glasses he always wore.

Today, those glasses felt exceptionally alien.

Those were the same glasses he wore the day she first discovered him. The image of him curled up in the back seat of the classroom, solving workbooks.

He was a boy who seemed to float alone like a planet, unbound by the gravity of this world.

That sense of alienation drew Hyeon-ju in. Hyeon-ju spoke first.

"By the way, whose math workbook is that?"

Hyeon-jin glanced at her briefly. It was a look that seemed like he wouldn't answer.

"Ilkum."

Just one word. From that day on, Hyeon-ju kept striking up conversations. Hyeon-jin answered shortly every time.

Some days two words, some days three. Then one evening, at the end of the academy hallway, Hyeon-jin opened his mouth first.

"You didn't eat lunch today, did you."

Hyeon-ju nodded. That was all. That was how they became inseparable best friends.

Those horn-rimmed glasses. Hyeon-ju thought they might be a mask thoroughly meant to hide his true self.

"But Hyeon-jin, those glasses really don't suit you."

Hyeon-jin paused for a moment. He smiled slightly awkwardly and pushed up the bridge of his glasses.

"Ah, really? I thought it was okay in its own way."

"No, it's really bad. Compared to your face, the glasses are too..." Hyeon-ju tilted her head. "How should I say it, it feels like they are covering your face."

Hyeon-jin hesitated for a moment. He avoided eye contact and muttered very softly.

"I wore them because I wanted to cover my face a bit..."

"Huh? What did you say?"

"No, just... my eyes aren't that great."

Hyeon-ju burst into a slight laugh.

"Hey, what are you talking about. Why are your eyes not great? Those horn-rimmed glasses are way uglier than your eyes."

Hyeon-jin stared blankly at Hyeon-ju. Then his ears instantly turned bright red. Hyeon-ju watched it happen.

He was the school's top student who allowed no gaps at any point. But right now, his ears were turning red in a completely defenseless state.

"Is, is that so..."

"Yeah, so wear something else tomorrow. It would look much better."

The image of him with his head bowed deep was completely different from the usual perfect top student.

The light from the streetlamp outside the window settled over the neat high school student's profile.

Hyeon-ju walked down the hallway with him. And suddenly, her thoughts drifted back. To herself just a few months ago.

Should I stop.

The first time she had that thought was at two in the morning.

She sat at the desk and picked up a ballpoint pen, but her hand would not move. She had no will.

She didn't want to solve problems, nor did she want to give up. An hour passed in that state.

Everyone in the house was asleep except for Hyeon-ju. Only the sound of the second hand could be heard. And Hyeon-ju's shallow breathing.

On the days she received her report card, Hyeon-ju always went to the bathroom.

Sitting inside the stall, she checked the numbers where no one was around. She didn't want to show anyone her face crumbling before the numbers.

The numbers were always similar. The distance to the top ranks of the school never narrowed.

The cliff named talent. Hyeon-ju was always bleeding in front of it.

"At this point, it's not a matter of effort," The private tutor's voice was low and calm. "I think the vessel that receives it is just different."

"Why are you asking about basic concepts again at this point?" Numerous gazes in the lecture room pierced her back.

Hyeon-ju kept looking straight ahead. Unable to decide to give up, it just continued.

The alarm rang, she ate, went to school, went to the academy. That was even more miserable.

In the hands of such a Hyeon-ju, right now, was a 92.

It wasn't a miracle. Just, finally. The problems that neither the private tutor nor the famous instructors could penetrate now came to her at a glance.

Feeling the rough wooden texture of the desk, Hyeon-ju looked down at the ballpoint pen in her hand.

Just then, Hyeon-jin's voice could be heard.

"Hyeon-ju."

"...Huh?"

"You're zoning out again."

Hyeon-ju snapped back to reality at those words. She laughed a little sheepishly.

"Sorry, I was thinking about something else."

"Thinking about what."

"Just, nothing much."

Hyeon-jin didn't ask further. Instead, he started walking side by side with Hyeon-ju.

After walking like that for a long time, Hyeon-jin abruptly opened his mouth.

"Aren't you hungry?"

"......Suddenly?"

"Your stomach just growled."

Hyeon-ju stiffened for a second. Hyeon-jin was already looking ahead. The tips of his ears were burning.

"It did not."

"It did."

"I said it didn't."

"It did."

Hyeon-ju was speechless and glared at Hyeon-jin.

Hyeon-jin pulled an energy bar from his uniform pocket without changing his expression at all.

"......Why do you have this?"

"I bought it beforehand."

"To give to me?"

"No, for me to eat."

When Hyeon-ju glared at him again with an absurd face, Hyeon-jin added briefly.

"Because you didn't even eat half of your lunch."

Hyeon-jin handed the energy bar to Hyeon-ju. Hyeon-ju silently accepted it.

"...Thanks."

"Forget it."

Hyeon-jin turned his gaze out the window. The evening light was casting long across the hallway floor.

Hyeon-ju took a bite of the energy bar and sneaked a glance at his profile. Clunky, black horn-rimmed glasses.

Hyeon-jin said he hated his eyes. But the eyes Hyeon-ju saw through the gap were clear, and green.

Hyeon-ju almost stopped walking at that moment.

It wasn't the first time she had properly seen Hyeon-jin's eyes. They were long-time best friends.

The eyes of Hyeon-jin she properly saw again were the black she always saw.

She had seen wrong. Hyeon-ju laughed inwardly. It was just that reality looked blurry and overlapping because she went to The Reverse World too often.

Hyeon-ju believed that only she knew Hyeon-jin's true self.

But Hyeon-ju did not see what spilled out of Hyeon-jin's bag. The cold string bookmark that had grazed Judith's ankle.