“You…” Ji Yeong, who Seung knew as Paella, began, “You’re old enough for college?”

“He’s twenty,” Jei Nam said helpfully.

“Did you skip a grade?” Ji Yeong demanded.

“More like ‘how many’” Hyeol Pi, or Aesh, corrected.

“Technically…”

Seung paused for a moment, unsure how to put this.

“Technically, all of them.”

“How old are you?” Ji Yeong said, still demanding.

He looked at his hand and wiggled his fingers for a while, before stopping with his thumb and pinky extended.

“Seventeen”

“Alright then. Show us what you’ve got, and then we’ll make you call us Seonbae.”

“What I’ve got?”

“You’re supposed to show us what you know in martial arts. Weren’t you listening?”

“Of course he wasn’t listening,” Hyeol said, “I wasn’t listening, I was one of the demonstratorials.” ((Fun fact: google doc spellcheck doesn’t flag that one.))

Seung decided to stop this before it went anywhere.

“I don’t know any martial arts yet, so I’ll just call you my Seonbaes and we’ll be done okay?”

Ji Yeong struggled with this for a moment. On the one hand, she wanted to test him out, and nobody was exempt from the rules. On the other hand, she wanted to hear Dali calling her Seonbae.

She decided that these weren’t mutually exclusive goals.

“Stand up.”

“Come on…”

Seung didn’t want to do this.

He would prefer not to be humiliated on the first day of class.

To make matters worse, most of the others had already been looked at by the other testers, and they had begun to draw a fairly large crowd. After all, all three of the upperclassmen who demonstrated were there.

But Yeong was not going to let him get out of it.

“Stand up.”

Hyeol Pi and Jae Nam were exchanging glances which clearly said “this is gonna be good.”

“Stand up or I’ll start now.”

He obviously wasn’t going to get any help from those two and the rest of the students-

Wait, what did she just say?

Her fist hit him in the face.

It wasn’t moving very fast, so it didn’t hurt him too much, but it had enough power to knock him out of his chair.

Punching someone out of their chair with out hurting them that badly was hard.

Ji Yeong had no idea how much she was showing off. She hadn’t even thought about the difficulty of the move.

Her mother had always said that the reason she was so strong was that nobody had ever told her she wasn’t supposed to be, and in truth, she was right.

She lifted her leg so that if Seung got up she could kick him, but if he didn’t, she could stomp on him.

“Stand up.”

The way Seung saw it, the more he was hit, the more he would lose face, and the closer he was to her, the more she would hit him.

So it is understandable that the conclusion he drew was that he should run away.

First he had to stand up.

He was weaker here than he was in Royal Road, so he would have to put more force into it.

He bent his legs towards his head, letting the momentum carry him onto his shoulders.

He put his hands on his knees and pushed.

If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

’Kip Up’

He exploded like a coiled spring, moving into the air and forward.

However, although he might not have been as strong as he was in Royal Road, he was still stronger than he expected.

He also forgot to account for the fact that after pushing him forward, she had walked towards him.

He was moving almost directly for her face.

She easily swept him aside, adding her own momentum as she did so. He was moving even faster, tumbling through the air.

’Saut de Precision!’

He landed on the very edge of the next table and considered his options.

It was a standard lecture room, as the battles weren’t supposed to involve the terrain, or even really be battles so much as showing off.

He had to move as far away as fast as possible, and, as always, that meant letting gravity do it’s thing.

’Gap Jump!’

He ran down over the tables, and after the fourth, he lept forward, heading for the front of the room.

He considered his moves.

’Saut de Fond!. Roulande!’

As he hit the ground he absorbed some of the momentum with his legs, and then turned it into a roll.

He adjusted his roll so it carried him into standing position and turned back to face Yeong.

She was much farther away than he expected. He noticed that Jei Nam’s mouth was gaping, and that Hyeol Pi was using his hands to conceal his grin.

Ji Yeong, however, looked more annoyed than impressed. He understood that. She would, after all, have to go down all of those stairs the long way.

He also wasn’t surprised that she became even more annoyed when she reached the front, and he started running away.

He was surprised, however, he he realised that she was faster than him. He knew he shouldn’t be, but he was.

’Fortunately,’ he thought, ’I know more tricks. Wallrun!’

He jumped and began running along the wall. It was curved, making it much easier to run on.

He reached the corner before her and smiled.

It was a dead end.

He kicked off of the wall.

’Backflip!’

He flipped over her head and landed, beginning to turn around.

She grabbed his shirt and smiled.

She had been facing him.

She had turned around first.

“Seonbae…?” He said tentatively.

She lifted him up and threw him over her shoulder.

She was surprised by how light he was.

’No wonder he was able to jump around so easily.’

As she carried him back to his seat she said “Just call me Yeong.”

____________________________________________________________________

Previous Next