I'm sorry, Dong-in thought. I'm sorry. Yet, the words didn't leave his mouth. He couldn't look at Ki-woong. He feared he would burst into tears if he did. He feared that Ki-woong would see him for who he really was: a repulsive coward.

Ki-woong looked at Dong-in, standing still, head hung low, and sighed as he pat his shoulder.

"I guess I rushed too much. We'll talk again once you calm down a bit, alright? You know I'm on your side."

He was so kind, and Dong-in had yelled at him, cursed at him. Stupid Dong-in. Bad Dong-in. He knew he would be spending a long time reprimanding himself.

Ki-woong turned around and left, closing the door behind him. As he made for the stairs, he ran across a boy in the hallway. It was the same boy that Dong-in had hit earlier. Ki-woong only knew of him from the many rumors surrounding him. He was much too young for the high schooler to have had any proper interactions with, but Ki-woong had heard that he was uncharacteristically clever and well-natured for his age. Frankly speaking, he had heard the most about his "ridiculously good looks" and his "face that would put models to shame," but neither of those things had been particularly interesting for Ki-woong.

"What brings you here? Do you want to see Dong-in?" asked Ki-woong.

"Yes." Lucid answered. There was no fluctuation in his voice, no emotion. His answer was short, level, almost cold and indifferent. Were all elementary schoolers like this, nowadays?

"Well, that's his room over there, but... Well. Why do you want to see him?"

No answer came, no matter how long Ki-woong waited. Dd he perhaps want to apologize? Or perhaps he was here for round two. Wait, Ki-woong thought. Wouldn't it be a bad idea for the two to meet, then?

"Do you mind if we had a little chat first? Just the two of us."

Lucid hesitated for a moment. After deciding that a small detour wouldn't impact his plan in any significant way, he nodded. The two headed for Ki-woong's room, and Lucid's mood improved as soon as he stepped in. The room was clean, considering it was a high school boy's room, and more importantly, there were many, many books. Books on the shelves and on the bedframe. When he saw Lucid show interest in his books, Ki-woong smiled.

"Do you like books?"

"Yes." The answer came quickly, almost instinctively.

"I guess you do well in your studies, then. But all the books here are mine, so they might be a bit hard for you."

"I like all books. Even if I don't understand their content right away, as long as I keep reading, I can still learn from them, and then I'll come to understand more and more."

He sounded more like Ki-woong's peer than a first grader.

"Oh, well. Alright. You can borrow them later, if you want. As long as it's not something I need right away, I can lend them to you."

"Thank you," said Lucid, bowing his head.

"But before that, could we talk? Here, take a seat."

Ki-woong motioned to the empty bed, patting it lightly. Not a single speck of dust rose up. Lucid took his seat at the edge of the pristine bed and looked up at the older boy.

"Thinking of it, I still don't know your name. What is it?"

Lucid answered without hesitation.

"That's a good name. But people still call you "plaster face", huh?"

Was he expecting an answer? Before Lucid could decide what to do, Ki-woong continued speaking.

"Let me apologize on Dong-in's behalf for what happened earlier. We should be looking after you younger ones, since we're older, and no matter the reason, violence is bad."

"... Is it?" asked Lucid.

What sort of question was that? Ki-woong was taken aback by the unexpected reaction, and he felt the conversation take a different turn.

"Of course. Who is your closest friend?"

"Myeong-su."

The answer was almost automatic, coming out of his mouth without his brain even processing the question. Lucid felt his expression relax. Indeed, Myeong-su was his closest friend, who brought a smile to his face just by thinking about him.

"Myeong-su? Is he a cla.s.smate?"

"No, he's my roommate here."

"Oh, okay. Well then, let's give you an example. Say that one day, Myeong-su broke something you really value, and let's say that you got really, really angry. If you happened to hit him out of anger, would you feel good about it"

"No."

The first conditional aside, Lucid couldn't even imagine hitting Myeong-su. And if he ever saw someone else hit him, then he would "punish" them on the spot.

"Exactly. Hitting your friend can't possibly feel good. And Myeong-su wouldn't feel good about being hit, either. So if that happened, then the two of you couldn't go back to being friends, right?"

It was a difficult thing, to explain the ethics and morals of violence to a first grader. Ki-woong himself was wholly unqualified, being only a freshman in high school himself. If this had been about grammar or math, he would have nailed it. Ki-woong felt the sweat beading on his nose.

"It's the same thing with the rest of the world." He continued. "People will sometimes get into disagreements with others, and have problems. Do you think you could live with someone who uses violence to solve those problems every time? Wouldn't it be hard to be with them, let alone be friends? You wouldn't know when that violence might be used against you. That would lead to mistrust and suspicion, right? That's why violence is bad. It leaves a mark on the body, sure, but it also hurts people inside. That's why in this world, where we have to coexist with others, violence is bad and should never be used lightly. That's why I yelled at Dong-in earlier, and why I'm apologizing on his behalf."

Ki-woong felt his s.h.i.+rt stick to his back from the sweat, but rather than feel accomplished at having explained the concept of violence, he was left feeling uncertain. Had he really explained it enough?

"Why are you apologizing?"

"Because it's my duty as an older brother to take responsibility for my younger brothers' faults. I should be making sure that you all grow up to be good people, and I've failed to do that. It's the same thing for you, you know. If you were to do something bad, whether in or out of this inst.i.tute, I would rush over and apologize. Because you're my younger brother, too. Right?"

Lucid now had an older brother.

"Well then, why did you want to meet Dong-in?" asked Lucid's new "brother."

Lucid felt that he shouldn't answer with the full truth and chose to remain quiet, which caused Ki-woong to realize that he hadn't gone to apologize.

"Will you tell me what happened earlier?" Ki-woong asked again, leaning slightly to meet the boy's eye level. Lucid simply gave the same answer he had given to the teacher.

"Hmm. I can't really tell what started it from what you just told me. Can you think of anything?"

"No. I don't really know. That's why... That's why I wanted to talk to him. To ask him why."

"Oh, so that's why you came to meet him?"

Lucid forced himself to nod. He wasn't quite lying. That truly had been his intention, at least until he had changed his mind.

"You really are smart, and nice, too. I almost got the wrong idea about you. As I told you ealier, it's not easy, even for adults, to settle things through conversation. Same goes for me, too."

Ki-woong smiled and ruffled Lucid's hair. The boy, however, was already deep in thought.

"A society where we coexist," he thought, "settling things through conversation... Violence might be used against me."

If Lucid "eliminated" Dong-in as a way to get rid of the cause of it all, then logically speakig, that meant that he would have to go on eliminating "everyone" who might pose a threat to him. But how could he possible eliminate them all, and how could he prove that they could become "causes"?

Most importantly, he would have to continue living in this "society," and he felt that maybe, there were rules in this society against this type of "removal." Perhaps, even "that" world, the world that he had determined to be violent and barbaric... had rules against it.

This was something he had to keep thinking about. His own rules, the rules of this world, and the rules of that world. He would have to consider whether they were right or wrong, and he would have to consider this for a long time.

This was the day when Lucid was. .h.i.t for the first time in his life, and the day when he first began to contemplate his views of the world and of society. It was also the day when, though he hadn't gone through with it, Lucid first considered using his magic to hurt someone.

End.