A message arrived from the Administration Building that our student IDs had been issued.
After eating lunch together, we headed straight to the Administration Building.
“Student Do Gyeonu, here is your student ID. Please check if there are any incorrectly recorded details. Your department and track, student number, and date of birth. On the back, your current dormitory address should be written. It’s standard to update it every time your dormitory changes…. There are many cases where the address is recorded incorrectly, so please check that as well. If it’s wrong, we’ll reissue it.”
“…I don’t think there are any incorrect parts. Thank you.”
The identification card that proves we are students of the Academy and also quasi-adults is precisely the student ID.
Of course, the school uniform can also serve as a means of proving identity, but it cannot compare to the student ID.
Perhaps it would be fine inside Geumgang Academy, but in Academy City, a student ID is absolutely necessary to prove one’s identity and exercise legitimate rights.
No, it wasn’t limited to just Academy City; it was also valid outside Academy City.
It was recognized as an official identification card comparable to a resident registration card or passport.
Meanwhile, the fact that our student IDs had been issued also meant that our change-of-address registration was complete.
From today, we had officially become residents of Academy City.
“How did it turn out? The photo came out well. This is the photo I recommended, right?”
“You said this one came out the best. How did yours turn out?”
“Ta-da! It came out pretty, right?”
“Indeed. It’s prettier than the real thing.”
“….”
“…The photo came out pretty too, but after all, it can’t compare to the real thing. The real thing is much prettier.”
“Hmph, it’s already too late.”
“But this photo—I don’t think I have it on my phone. Could you send it to me?”
“Huh? Hmm….”
“You don’t want to?”
“It’s not that… Looking at it again now, I think I came out a bit ugly.”
“Huh? What do you mean?”
“Doesn’t my face look swollen?”
“You were already… No, you don’t look swollen at all. It’s pretty.”
“Well, still… I have a lot of photos that came out better than this, so I’d rather send you those.”
“Those aren’t ID photos, are they?”
“That’s true.”
“I don’t have any ID photos, so give me that one.”
“Hmm… Fine, okay. Then I’ll send you this one along with other photos. Ah, you know you can’t send them to other people, right?”
“Of course.”
“Give me your photo too.”
“Sure, why not.”
While waiting for the others to receive their student IDs,
Yeon Haneul and I looked at each other’s student IDs and exchanged photos.
By then, the others also had their student IDs in hand.
“Hey everyone! Let’s all take a certification photo with our new student IDs! I’ll post it on Hellobi! Come on, everyone gather over here!”
“Yeah, good. I should post it too.”
“Please send me the photos too. I want to keep them as a memento.”
“Hmph, do whatever you want.”
“Go Eunbi! Send me the photos too! Let me brag to my clan!”
“Sagun, what is Hellobi?”
“Hellobi is an image-sharing SNS, in other words, a social network service that has been spreading centered on Academy City since a few years ago….”
Go Eunbi, excited after receiving her student ID, gathered us together.
Under her direction, we gathered in a circle and held our student IDs toward the center so the photos would be visible.
Soon, she took a photo from above so that all the student IDs were in frame.
“Oh! Everyone came out well! I’ll share it in the group chat right now! And post it on Hellobi….”
“Eunbi, what hashtags will you use?”
“Let’s see? Daily, daily life at the Academy, with my best friends, let’s be friends forever, the Academy’s handsome boys and beautiful girls. Something like that? Oh right! Everyone tell me your IDs!”
“So that’s what it means to be a social butterfly… using tags like that without a care.”
Go Eunbi had indeed taken a photo that looked impressive even though it was nothing special.
I looked at the photo posted in the group chat and pressed the save button.
In the meantime, she was absorbed in posting the photo on Hellobi.
Her typing speed was incredibly fast.
“I know Haneul, Gyeonu, and Lisa’s IDs… Haerang! What’s your ID?”
“h, a, e, r, a, n, g, 108!”
“And Arin?”
“It can’t be helped. Give me your phone. It’s a pain to even talk, so I’ll specially type it for you.”
“Enter our IDs too!”
“Up to u, d, o, n, g is the same, but the numbers at the end are different!”
“Just add 01, 02, 03!”
“How do you use this Hellobi thing? Do I just download it from the store?”
“I’ll show you. Search for Hellobi in the store, and then….”
Seriously.
With eleven people, it was chaotic.
I clicked my tongue at the sounds coming from all over.
Go Eunbi, concentrating on typing and answering each one, looked almost amazing.
Meanwhile, Lisa kindly helped Gang Hanbyeol get started on Hellobi.
“strongstar145. From now on, this is Hanbyeol’s ID. Got it?”
“Yeah! Okay!”
“When you first log in, you’ll be asked to create a profile like this. Just fill it out simply according to what’s written here…. The most important thing on Hellobi is the profile picture.”
Lisa explained gently.
Gang Hanbyeol listened attentively like a student learning.
I couldn’t help but smile slightly seeing the two of them like that.
‘She’s saying almost exactly the same explanation she heard from Eunbi not long ago.’
Like Gang Hanbyeol, Lisa was also an outsider to the ways of the world.
In her case, it was because she had lived within the Empire’s culture before coming to Academy City.
Seeing her teach Gang Hanbyeol while showing off her knowledge felt somewhat like watching a comedy skit.
It was then that Go Eunbi finished her work.
“I tagged everyone! Hanbyeol too!”
I logged into Hellobi.
Along with a notification that I had been tagged, the post Go Eunbi had uploaded was at the very top.
Already, two hearts were displayed on the post, meaning someone had seen it.
Curious, I checked and saw that one was from Go Eunbi, who had given it to herself.
“….”
“…W-what are you looking at?”
“For someone who showed such an indifferent reaction, you were the first to hit like,weren’t you?”
“…!”
The other one was Min Arin.
I looked at her as she opened her yellow eyes wide and her face began to turn red.
She stammered out an excuse.
“M-my data is just fast, that’s why! And my hand slipped and pressed it!”
“OMG! Arin, then are you going to cancel it?”
“Ugh… Why would I need to bother pressing it again? Going to cancel it is a waste of energy, and it doesn’t harm me anyway!”
Go Eunbi acted exaggeratedly.
Unaware of that, Min Arin visibly flustered and rambled on.
There was no one who didn’t know she was embarrassed.
‘And I saw everything earlier.’
Before I even spoke to her,
Min Arin had been looking at her smartphone screen with a slight smile playing at the corners of her mouth.
However, if I teased her more like this, she looked like she would explode in anger, so I decided to bury it in my heart.
Having cooled her flushed excitement, she changed the subject.
“Now that we’ve received our student IDs and there’s nothing else to do, I’ll head back. I need to study and do homework too.”
“You’re leaving already? Let’s kill some more time at a cafe… But what homework?”
“It’s writing a will. The Witch gave it as homework today.”
“A will? She gave that to us too? I got scolded by the Instructor earlier because of that.”
“That’s mostly your fault, Eunbi.”
“We received it as homework today too. It seems everyone got the same one. Haerang too?”
“Yeah! I got it as homework today too!”
“Us too!”
“But what mistake did you commit?”
“Well, Eunbi….”
“When do you think a person dies? When their heart stops? No… A person dies when they disappear from people’s memories! …I got excited and wrote that, and got scolded by the Instructor.”
Listening to what the kids were saying,
it seemed coincidentally everyone had received the assignment to write a will.
Naturally, the conversation shifted in that direction.
And Go Eunbi’s impromptu suggestion.
“Then shall we all write our wills together!?”
* * *
Following what Lisa had taught him,
Gang Hanbyeol devoted himself to setting up his profile while his friends chatted.
He switched his personal information to private, selected fields of interest and hobbies, answered a few questions, and wrote a brief self-introduction.
After the series of steps was finished, it was now time to upload a profile picture.
‘What should I upload?’
Gang Hanbyeol’s smartphone mostly contained landscape photos.
Everything he had seen after descending Taebaek Mountain had been fascinating, so he had ended up taking many pictures.
He contemplated which photo among them would be good.
Then, a tip below the profile picture caught his eye.
[Tip] Setting a photo with your face in it makes it easier to gain others’ favor!
‘A photo with my face?’
Come to think of it, his friends had profile photos with their faces showing, both in the group chat and on Hellobi.
Gang Hanbyeol turned the screen back.
And to check if his memory was correct, he checked his friends’ Hellobi profiles.
Everyone had their faces in their profile pictures.
Go Eunbi taking a photo while looking in a mirror.
Min Arin smiling confidently from a downward angle.
Lisa Grace smiling shyly while drinking coffee at a cafe, seemingly taken from the side by someone.
Do Gyeonu fiddling with his smartphone, seemingly taken from the front by someone.
Yong Haerang taking a stance in a black dobok, seemingly taken from the front in black and white by someone.
Park Sagun taking a photo with his dorm room in the background from the front.
The triplets standing side by side at the front gate of Geumgang Academy, seemingly taken from the front by someone.
‘The only person who had uploaded a photo without a face was Yeon Haneul.’
Yeon Haneul had set two rabbit dolls with strawberry milk placed between them as her profile.
‘I should change to a face photo too, following the others.’
Anyway, Gang Hanbyeol decided to set a profile with his face showing, like the others.
The problem was that he didn’t have many photos.
There were only a few photos from when he was young with somewhat blurry quality compared to now, and a photo he had taken with his Master, Seo Jeongjin, at some point.
‘If possible, a recently taken photo would be better, right?’
It couldn’t be helped.
Gang Hanbyeol decided to take a selfie.
It was his first time, but he knew the trick, so he was confident he could take a good one.
He switched the camera lens.
His face, reflected in the lens, appeared on the smartphone screen.
‘Let’s see… The lighting seems suitable at this position… Should I raise the angle a bit?’
Gang Hanbyeol moved his smartphone.
Having found a position and angle he liked, he was about to press the button.
‘Huh? It’s Gyeonu.’
At that moment, Do Gyeonu entered the corner of the screen.
Showing his side profile, he was talking to Yeon Haneul, who wasn’t visible on screen.
Suddenly,
a thought came to Gang Hanbyeol’s mind.
He spoke to Do Gyeonu, who was in the screen.
“Gyeonu, look here.”
“Huh?”
On the screen,
Do Gyeonu turned his head sharply.
Realizing Gang Hanbyeol was trying to take a picture, he fixed his gaze as if cooperating.
Then he made a V with his fingers.
“Taking it?”
Gang Hanbyeol chuckled at his sense and pressed the shutter button.
Click.
Gang Hanbyeol’s profile picture was complete.
I Became the Childhood Friend of the Mid-Boss