[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: ?]
Ah.
I quickly corrected my mistake.
[X Team / : Sorry. I’ll correct that imdiately.]
[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Good. Then go catch the culprit.]
I an, why ...?
[X Team / Senior Chen Koenig: Sniff them out and hang their head up as a warning!]
Of course, I wasn’t out of my mind enough to argue again in a group chat full of seniors.
Still a little dumbfounded, I stared at my phone and typed back.
[X Team / : Yes, sir!]
[X Team / William: Good luck.]
That was the first thing the kid had said after staying silent in the group chat the whole ti.
Ha.
A strange sense of emptiness washed over .
But before I could even properly process that feeling, people started flooding the chat again.
[X Team / sup (user not added): Yeah, you’re close with people on the other // team]
[X Team / sup (user not added): If you ask, they might tell you]
[X Team / . (user not added): Go, Taleb! We’re counting on you!]
[X Team / ☆ (user not added): Wait]
[X Team / ☆ (user not added): What if this bastard’s actually the mole?]
[X Team / . (user not added): Huh?!]
[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: Holy sh*t?!]
[X Team / Senior Giacomo Ro: IT WAS YOU!!!]
Seriously...
[X Team / : This is unfair. I’ve been staying ho lately.]
[X Team / : I even voted for a different team na!]
[X Team / Ruta Ayer (user not added): What did you vote for]
[X Team / : Chow Chow.]
[X Team / ☆ (user not added): This guy really doesn’t make it easy on himself]
[X Team / Yoshika Shastel (user not added): Don’t bully our handso youngest too much~ isn’t he still sick? You need to take care of your health~]
I wasn’t the youngest, though.
But it really was unfair. Why were they suddenly turning suspicious eyes on of all people, when I’d been quieter than anyone?
I poured all my grievance into my defense, but no one really listened.
I even sent a crying emoji, but it was instantly swept away by the rushing conversation.
People quickly returned to raging at Team Y—aning the Serpent Eagle team—renewed their determination to win, started building strategies for each event, and then circled back to the original topic: finding the mole.
And the task of rooting out the mole ended up being assigned to the lower-year staff, including .
[X Team / Gregory (user not added): Leaking the team na is forgivable]
[X Team / Gregory (user not added): But leaking strategy must never happen, and will never be forgiven]
[X Team / Gregory (user not added): Identify the leak route as quickly as possible]
[X Team / Senior Jason Trevain: Everyone shut up now]
Thankfully, the whole chain of events was finally wrapped up when Trevain returned from a mission and entered the group chat.
[X Team / Senior Jason Trevain: Aren’t you all supposed to be practicing?]
The group chat imdiately quieted down again.
The absence of unread ssages piling up like madness brought instant peace of mind. It was also nice being free from all those suspicious looks.
Sadly, though, Trevain did not cancel the bizarre order from the seniors telling to sniff out the mole.
So that was how I ended up going over to Yun’s house across the street, half out of curiosity and half by force.
Because two mbers of the Serpent Eagle team lived in the mansion across the road.
***
Ding-dong!
The mont I took my hand off the doorbell, the front door swung open.
Yun must be ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ here.
I smiled faintly and stepped into the familiar mansion.
“What.”
As expected.
Whenever I rang the bell and the door opened without any cheerful footsteps or calm walking sounds from inside, Yun was always the one there.
Oh, but judging by the shoes, Yehyeon was here too.
But if he wasn’t visible in the living room, that ant...
“He’s asleep.”
That figured.
“What about Ami?”
“Patrol. Back in two hours.”
“Oh. Perfect timing, then.”
The mont I let that slip, Yun raised one eyebrow.
I looked at my ntor’s dry face and grinned.
“I ca because I have a favor to ask, Senior.”
“What.”
“Did the Serpent Eagle team make a group chat too, by any chance?”
A look of utter disbelief mixed into Yun’s gaze.
But it wasn’t as if this was the first or second ti I’d gotten that kind of look. Completely unfazed, I kept smiling in circles and waited for an answer.
“Obviously Ami made it. Why do you care?”
“Can I take a look at that group chat?”
I said it bluntly.
A flicker of interest entered Yun’s eyes.
“You’re saying you want to spy on another team’s chat with your whole chest?”
“Are you interested in the sports festival, Yun?”
“No.”
That’s what I thought.
Honestly, it would’ve been scarier if he had shown interest.
“If you’re not interested, then it shouldn’t matter if I look, right? I won’t tell anyone I read it. I absolutely won’t leak strategy either. Seriously. I’ll only look at the chat window itself.”
“Why do you even want to read it?”
“Because of Serpent Eagle.”
I explained the situation.
Yun snorted, as if thinking a bunch of idiots had gathered once again to do sothing idiotic.
To be honest, this ti I kind of understood his reaction.
If he refused to show the group chat, I was planning to just not push it and hang out before going ho.
That was what I was thinking, and yet, surprisingly, Yun handed his phone.
“Huh?”
Was this for real?
“You’re really letting look?”
“Read it in three minutes.”
Yun said it flatly.
“If it were up to , I’d rather just leave that room entirely.”
...So he’d never even gone in once.
The alerts had piled up into a mountain. Taking Yun’s phone, I imdiately entered the group chat just like I promised.
The atmosphere in the Serpent Eagle group chat was noticeably different from the Black Mamba chat.
Probably because Ami was the room owner.
I quickly skimd the conversation.
[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Just like I said before, I made the poll!]
[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Board “Poll”: Sports Festival Preferred Event Poll]
[Serpent Eagle / Tom Husson (user not added): Thank you, Senior!]
[Serpent Eagle / Hesh Lyle (user not added): I voted!]
[Serpent Eagle / Sunny (user not added): I think it’d be good to upload the team-na survey link too]
[Serpent Eagle / Sunny (user not added): I’ll make it]
[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Thanks!]
[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Rick and Oppa, vote too!]
[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Add team nas too!]
[Serpent Eagle / Ricardo Sordi (user not added): Sure]
“Yun!”
I shouted on reflex.
Yun didn’t even look my way.
“What now.”
“You still haven’t added Rick as a friend?”
You’re even on the sa TF team!
For so reason I was the one feeling offended, so when I looked up and shot him a betrayed look, my ntor stared back with dull eyes.
“If you’re done, hand it over.”
“Uh. Not yet.”
Afraid he’d snatch it away, I shut my mouth and obediently looked back down at the phone.
After that ca so warm, wholeso talk about ordering matching team T-shirts. Ami posted the group chat rules. There was discussion about coordinating with general staff and research staff, and also what to do if too many people ended up unable to join the events they wanted.
These people actually seed civilized...
Of course, that didn’t an the Serpent Eagle team lacked competitive spirit compared to Black Mamba.
[Serpent Eagle / O (user not added): Team na!]
[Serpent Eagle / O (user not added): Let’s go with an apex predator! Doesn’t the team with the cute animal lose every sports festival?]
[Serpent Eagle / Kate (user not added): That’s all superstition]
[Serpent Eagle / Kate (user not added): Actually, the Whale Shark team won the one before last]
[Serpent Eagle / ♥️ (user not added): Isn’t a whale shark an apex predator?]
[Serpent Eagle / Kate (user not added): Whale sharks are sweethearts!]
[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: Right, team nas matterrr]
[Serpent Eagle / Choi Ami: But we’ll decide fairly by vote from the nas submitted]
Huh?
It looked like they’d chosen their team na in a way pretty similar to ours, so how did it end up becoming Serpent Eagle?
Up to this point, it really did seem like a coincidence.
But it was still too uncommon a na to dismiss as pure coincidence.
I narrowed my eyes and scrolled further.
And then I quickly noticed sothing strange. At one point, discussion about the team na disappeared from the chat in an unnaturally abrupt way, and then suddenly the Serpent Eagle team won by the highest vote count.
There was sothing here.
“Yun.”
I called to my ntor in the most natural voice I could manage.
“What.”
“Did you happen to ntion our team na to anyone?”
Maybe Ami had let sothing slip...
But Yun couldn’t have looked more indifferent.
“I only learned this team’s na because you told .”
“Did Ami not say anything?”
“She made a lot of noise telling people to vote, but I didn’t really listen.”
“Did Ami maybe tell people to vote for a certain team na—”
“Hilde!”
The door flew open and Ami appeared.
I was about to rise from my seat and calmly greet her when she kicked off her shoes in an instant and charged straight at .
“Hildeee!”
“Ami. Good work out there—”
Smack!
Using a running start, she snatched Yun’s phone cleanly out of my hand.
So she hadn’t run over because she was happy to see ?
Sharp.
Thinking that, I watched Ami land lightly in the living room.
Of course, I wasn’t too worried. Even if I’d been spacing out lately, it wasn’t like I’d completely lost my mind.
Naturally, the mont Ami ca in, I’d already gone back to the ho screen and turned the phone off so it would need a fingerprint to unlock—
“Just as I thought!”
Ami tapped away at Yun’s phone and shouted.
“You were spying on our group chat, Hilde!!”
“No, wait, how did you unlock it?”
I had definitely checked to make sure it was properly locked!
“I know Oppa’s unlock pattern! Gotcha, Hilde!”
“Yun’s really that relaxed about privacy?”
Says the man who literally has staff housing with a mystery-use freezer warehouse?
I turned my head toward my ntor with a seriously? look, and Yun, who was drinking (his own) tea in the kitchen, blandly t my gaze.
He even read the question inside it.
“Do you think I’d let anything happen the mont my phone beca public?”
“No, so is that why you also treat the privacy on my phone like it’s worthless?”
“I have no idea what you’re suddenly talking about.”
What an unbelievably shaless human being...
While I was inwardly admiring the sheer thickness of my ntor’s face, Ami stepped right into my line of sight and asserted her presence.
“Hilde! This is cheating!”
I looked at the tiny senior angrily pouting in an adorable way.
Then I carefully voiced my honest opinion.
“But Ami, your Serpent Eagle team started it first.”
“That was just a coincidenceee.”
Ami suddenly put on a perfectly neat expression.
“It just kinda happened that way.”
“That expression looks unnatural, Ami... I don’t believe you.”
“Gasp! Hilde doesn’t believe ! I’m shocked!”
“And I didn’t look at anything important like strategy.”
I declared the truth proudly.
“I only looked as far as the part where the team na was being decided. Yun showed it to .”
“Oh-ho. Passing the bla cos so naturally to you.”
“But it’s true. If Yun had said he didn’t want to show , I would’ve just gone ho. I only asked on the off chance it might work...”
“Be honest, Hilde. Ro and the delinquents put you up to this, didn’t they!”
Ami pointed it out sharply.
“You’re close with us, so they told you to co spy, riiight!”
For a while, Ami and I lightly bickered back and forth.
While eating the waterlon punch she brought out, we kept going like that until before long Yehyeon ca shuffling out.
He looked like he had just woken up. His hair was even fluffier than before, and his eyes were nearly closed.
Dragging his bare feet along the floor, Yehyeon slowly looked at us.
“Hilde... what are you doing with Ami?”
The mont he grasped the situation, his eyes changed.
The current Black Badger advisor, who had hated sports festivals since ti immorial, stared straight at .
“Hilde...”
“...Yes.”
“Don’t let the people around you push you around too much...”
After saying that, he turned as if to stagger back into the bedroom.
But just as I was about to apologize for waking him, Yehyeon stopped with a bitter smile.
For a mont, he stood there as if replaying what he had just heard from us.
Then he said,
“It looks like Trevain is trying to fill Richard’s empty place.”
That was truly just a superior muttering to himself.
“I’m grateful. It seems like you’ll do well.”
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