Episode 1.
Sean was dragged to California when he was ten years old.
In other words, Lower School 4th grade. Sean became a student at Elmir Westlake overnight.
The Lower School of Elmir Westlake Private School, located in Bel Aster, the most affluent neighborhood of Los Angeles, had an unusually large quad. Parents visiting the school could watch children playing on the quad, which sprawled like a field just by looking to the left while driving from the main gate to the main building.
The iconic palm trees of LA, planted as street trees, their trunks thick, whisked past the car windows as if wiping them. Through the slightly open window crack came the lively laughter of children.
Similarly drawn by the laughter, a middle-aged man turned his head to the left and spoke quietly. He was dressed very formally in a black suit.
“It’ll be different from New York here. For the better.”
The boy wearing his new school uniform made no reply. His colorless face was so cold it wasn’t childlike in the least.
“Sean Frost. I’ll say it again, I’m not doing this to torment you or hurt you.”
“Yes.”
A reply eventually came, but the voice was cold, and his gaze was directed not at his father but at the scenery outside the window. Even so, he wasn’t interested in the view outside.
He couldn’t possibly be interested. There was no room in his mind for things ‘Californian’. Even the excessively good weather was, in fact, somewhat uncomfortable for Sean.
Sean’s eyes narrowed slightly as he looked towards the quad.
‘…Oranges?’
Whether the PE uniforms for this Lower School were orange or not, the Lower School students wearing mixed white and orange PE uniforms looked to Sean like oranges rolling around an orange orchard.
The oranges on the grass were producing a (by Sean’s standards) boisterously excessive noise.
-Go, Spring, Go!
-You Rock!!
All the children were cheering, raising their arms for something. Sean’s gaze shifted to what the children were looking at.
-Let’s Goo!
At the center of attention was a black-haired Asian girl. The puffball-like, fluffy white hair tie holding her back hair fluttered softly in the wind.
The girl, fists clenched, was lowering her upper body, preparing for a high jump. Her gaze, fixed on the distant blue thick mat and horizontal bar, was blazing.
“California kids are so bright and energetic. I wish you’d learn a bit from that aspect of them.”
No sooner had the man’s words ended than a ding- sound filled the car.
It was the sound of the window going up. Thanks to the excellent soundproofing, the sounds from the quad could no longer be heard. The car interior quickly became stark.
Sean had no intention of watching the quad any further. As he turned his gaze forward, the last thing that caught his eye was the sight of one ‘orange’ starting a heated dash towards the mat.
Sena Cruz, you can do it!!
The more she focused, the more distant the children’s cheers sounded. Sena’s legs, running a curved path towards the horizontally placed bar, were light as if flying.
The bar’s height was a full 1.35 meters. The qualifying mark for the 4th-grade girls’ division in this year’s AAU Junior Olympic Games was precisely 1.35m.
Her pace, which had started slow, gradually quickened as she neared the bar. The last two steps were the most important.
An eternity-like instant vanished like the moment a photo is taken with a shutter sound, and Sena, who had cleared the bar with her back, was thrown onto the blue mat.
The bar remained perfectly in place.
“Wahhah!”
Sena’s cheer, yelled with arms outstretched, was soon drowned out by the other children’s loud voices.
“I told you! There’s no way our Spring couldn’t clear it!”
“She really is a ‘Spring’…”
The girls jumped up and down, the boys sighed. Sena had once again proven why her nickname was Spring.
She really is a spring, yeah!
The reason Sena applied herself so diligently to the high jump was simple.
Amid the commotion, Sena sprang up from the mat and ran straight to James. Beaming, she held out her palm. James, wearing a sulky expression, pulled a small key from his pants pocket and placed it on Sena’s palm.
“No way. You couldn’t clear it last week!”
“That’s why I practiced twice as hard?!”
Sena laughed cheerfully. Neither James’s embarrassed expression nor the sidelong glances of the other boys were in Sena’s sights.
‘Yes!’
Opening James’s locker, the Pink Stardust limited edition box flaunted its presence even without a spotlight. This limited edition was so hugely popular right now that it was experiencing a shortage across the US.
Sena, tucking the limited edition box under one arm, locked the locker again. Now it was time to go to Mr. Gardner Tyler.
The reason was, Mr. Tyler wanted to gift the Pink Stardust limited edition to his granddaughter. So, he had promised that if Sena gave him the limited edition candy, he would give her, in exchange, a signed ball by the past superstar Ron Robinson that had been sitting in lost and found unclaimed for about ten years.
And the Principal had said that if it was Ron Robinson’s signed ball, he would give her John Miller’s LP record. And that LP record was the very one Sena’s father had been desperately searching for.
“You said if I get the John Miller LP, we can go to Dazzlingland package for summer vacation? Well, if it’s really possible……”
Because Sena always wanted to go to Dazzlingland, her family took turns choosing vacation spots.
But just a moment ago, this year’s vacation spot had been decided.
‘This vacation is also Dazzlingland!’
A 4-night, 5-day full package! Sena hummed a tune without realizing it.
However, finding Mr. Tyler immediately on the vast campus was vague. Besides, she was in the middle of class, so she couldn’t be away for long either.
Stepping outside the building, Sena’s gaze landed on the main hall. A figure was visible in the first-floor principal’s office window.
‘Should I tell the Principal first?’
He’ll be so happy. With a bright smile, Sena’s steps headed straight for the main hall.
But upon reaching the principal’s office, just as she was about to knock on the oak wood door, Sena froze mid-action at the voices coming from inside.
-“…I see, that’s the situation.”
-“Yes, it’s a very personal matter, but I told you this hoping you, Principal, would understand my and Sean’s circumstances.”
-“I understand.”
Sean?
‘Is there a kid named Sean in Lower School?’
Truthfully, she should have left the moment she heard voices. But while her mind was briefly captured by her thoughts, the next words followed.
-“Sean is… my son is currently… I can only call him a psychopath…”
The moment the word ‘psychopath’ pierced her ears with utmost clarity, Sena’s foot took a step back. She couldn’t listen any further.
But the moment she hurriedly turned the corner and headed for the exit in the opposite direction, Sena came face to face with a boy standing under the beige outer wall window of the principal’s office.
“……”
The boy with a cool face had his arms crossed. The uniform he wore was unmistakably that of this place, Elmir Westlake Private School. Though it was a face Sena had never seen before.
“Ah, uh…”
Sena was at a loss. Whether student or staff, lurking under the principal’s office window and eavesdropping like that was unacceptable. But pointing it out felt…
While Sena hesitated, the boy was the first to raise his index finger and press it to his lips. Sena’s hand, which had been half-raised in the air, slowly lowered.
And in the silence, the gloomy and dark conversation Sena didn’t want to hear any more of continued.
-“I sincerely hope my son Sean can receive treatment for his mind here. Or at the very least, that he doesn’t become any more of a mad child……”
There isn’t an exact English equivalent for the Korean word ‘눈치’ (social sense/ability to read a situation), but in Sena’s vocabulary, having a Korean father, the word ‘noonchi’ existed clearly.
The ‘mad child’ looked at Sena with Glasz eyes (pie eyes, irises with multiple colors blended in a gradient) that Sena was seeing for the first time in her life.
Then, in a low voice, he greeted her in a way Sena never imagined.
“Nice to meet you. I’m Monster Rogue Frost.”
The reason Sena flinched in panic was due to a lack of immunity. She’d never had occasion to hear a peer’s voice with such a low temperature.
First name: Monster. Middle name: Thug (Log). Only the last name might be real…
“I guess I don’t need to run away? Even after hearing the warning.”
Maybe the last name was real? Sena thought so. It really felt like frost was blowing
