5. I Don't Know.

Once, at the academy, I'd taken a class on torture.

At first, when I heard it was about torture, I assumed it was a lecture on ancient texts.

"Now then, shall we begin our first class with a history of torture?"

Excuse me?

Surprisingly, that was how the class began—a chronicle of cruel punishments, one after another.

"Tearing limbs apart, poisoning with gas—people used to do all sorts of inhumane things back in the day."

On the chalkboard that the cheerful professor tapped away at, censored tools and their marks were laid out in stark, unsparing detail.

After that first class ended, I remembered half the students dropping the course on the spot.

The professor had just smiled pleasantly and said, "What a shame, it was getting interesting," then carried right on.

Why is that coming to mind now?

"Tell us everything."

Tell you what.

On a weekend afternoon, four friends had barged into my room without warning, bound me up, and tied me to a chair.

Restraining the subject—that was step one of torture, if I recalled correctly.

"We heard the rumor. You and Elline… held hands?"

All four of them stared at me like they couldn't believe it.

Their expressions said two things: *please tell me it's a lie*, and *this is absolutely ridiculous*.

Ross in particular—the one who'd proposed the confession forfeit—was watching me with the most unsteady voice of all.

"Are you actually dating Elline?"

"…"

I'd set aside my doubts, but even when I asked myself the same question, I couldn't give a confident answer.

Even so, if I had to say—

"Yeah. That's how it turned out."

Probably.

"Boss, what do we do with this guy?"

"Should we kill him?"

Kain and Edgar, who'd been holding me on either side, started mimicking the drawl of back-alley thugs and cranked up the pressure on my arms.

Step two of torture: inflict pain slowly until the subject confesses.

"Wait—ow! Hey, you're going to snap my joint!"

"Shut up!"

"Okay, okay, you're getting too into it."

Edgar and Kain sorted out the pressure between themselves, and Ross, looking utterly drained, kept rubbing his face with both hands as he turned to Balrod.

"Balrod, what did I tell you! I said they were dating, didn't I?"

Balrod just shrugged.

"But at the end you admitted yourself that it looked like she'd turned him down."

"Well… that's true."

Ross shook his head again in disbelief.

"Guys, let me go. I'm in pain."

"Silence, traitor!"

What traitor, you guys, I'm actually hurting.

"This guy—I should've known the moment he started pretending he had no interest in romance!"

"Exactly. Wasn't throwing scissors on purpose all part of the plan?"

So this is how conspiracy theories are born.

"Hmm."

And now he grabbed my face and started kneading it.

My skin crawled.

"What are you doing?"

"Dissecting and analyzing."

I'm not a specimen.

Once the excitement died down, the five of us ended up scattered around my dorm room, sitting in a loose cluster. Five grown men in a dorm room that small—it felt like the walls might burst at any moment.

Every gaze was still pointed at me, but now they were filled with nothing but curiosity.

"So did you go on a date today?"

A date—well, if you wanted to call it that, sure.

"Yeah."

At that single word, Kain let out a shriek like a schoolgirl and started slapping Edgar on the back.

"What did you do?"

"Went for a walk."

"He went for a walk, a walk!"

Kain, apparently unable to contain himself, started strangling Edgar, while Edgar grabbed him by the head and the two of them made a whole production of it.

"Ignore those idiots."

At Balrod's word, I continued.

A walk—we'd gone around the North Courtyard, had lunch right after, then parted ways. When we said goodbye, she'd left in her usual fashion, saying "See you next time" before vanishing without a trace, so there wasn't much else to add.

"Beron really had to start something even there."

They'd been listening with great interest, but the moment Beron's name came up, their expressions soured in unison, as if on cue.

"A guy like that being in Alpha Class—what a sorry state of affairs."

Ross clicked his tongue, and the others nodded along.

Alpha Class carried a prestige that made it feel untouchable. Even the most ordinary-looking student became someone different the moment you heard, *"They're Alpha."*

The thought of Beron being counted among that aura made their faces look like they'd lost their appetite.

"We should've seen it coming when he transferred."

"Leave it. A guy like that gets into Alpha Class and he'll drop right back out at the midterm evaluation."

At Balrod's matter-of-fact assessment, Ross gave a short laugh and clapped him lightly on the shoulder.

"Look at you—current Alpha Class sees things differently, huh?"

"Well, you all know it too, don't you?"

You know it too.

At those words, we all nodded without needing to say anything more.

Beron, who probably mistook his position for genuine ability, would come back down the moment this semester ended.

There were cases of people cheating their way up once or twice, but in the end, real ability was always exposed through consistent evaluation.

"Anyway, what are we going to do about Rutess?"

"Why."

"What do you mean why—you're going to have a rough time for a while."

At the word *rough*, I let out a sigh without meaning to.

If even these guys already knew, it meant the rumor had already spread.

The fury that had driven them charging into my room just minutes ago might as well have been a performance—now they were too busy grinning at me.

"Ah, I'm jealous. Genuinely."

"Same. How did Elline even say yes?"

That's what I'd like to know.

It wasn't that I lacked confidence—no matter how many times I thought about it, I couldn't come up with a clear answer.

You don't need a petty reason to love someone, but still.

I still didn't understand the fundamental reason she'd accepted my confession.

After all, the reason I'd confessed in the first place was, in the end, a forfeit.

"…"

Right. A forfeit.

I had confessed to Elline as a forfeit.

"Anyway, it's getting late, so I'll head out."

Ross stood up.

Whether he'd noticed the darkness settling in completely outside, or whether he'd read something in my expression, I couldn't tell—but once he rose, the others followed one by one.

"Hey, who's the dorm supervisor tonight?"

"Yulian."

"Ah!"